In Which Vera Has A Day Off & Writes a Little

A chill mist whispered in  the trees. Dry leaves, here and there clung to their branches as if hoping that the seasons were wrong. That really, it was early spring and they could stay. Vera kept repeating that in her head. She bought a notebook at one of those discount pharmacies, the one where she got her medicine.

            Then she walked to a small pocket park and sat down in the early morning gloom.

She wrote:

            Trees whisper chill words

            One leaf clings to her bare branch

            Hoping spring will come.

Not bad. She wrote some more:

            The man eats mashed sardines.

            Without onion they are not so good,

            he explained once to me.

           

            tomato cuts the salt, sweetens it.

           The bread has to be toasted rye

            to remind him of his childhood.

            I wish I had a food I loved like that

            My childhood noodles are nothing

            but mush.

That one needs work but it will do. For now.

One more small one:

Iris blue eyes searching

Mine did not know to look

But that did not work.

I dreamed you were sweet in my hands

like syrup and you stuck to me

And that was all she could write. Maybe later.  As Vera walked back to her apartment in the darkening gloom, she wondered if she would ever see Iris again. She felt something like irritation and embarrassment in her heart. She wondered if she had been precipitous to think that she and Iris had any kind of connection at all. She still had the drawing, with the heart, but had not heard anything at all from Iris.